DarkLordofthePenguins's Blog

I'm taking a couple of computer security related courses on Coursera . For those of you who are not familiar with Coursera, it's an online program that offers classes that anyone can take for free. The classes consist of video lectures along with quizzes and problems sets and sometimes supplementary reading material.

This is something I did just for fun in my inordinate free time. I compiled a list of essential skills that are valuable for computer geeks and that every computer geek should at least try to learn how to do. This is meant as a "just for fun" thing where you can add up how many skills you know to see how good you are, as well as a helpful list of skills...

I've been doing a lot with computers lately - not a lot of programming really, but a lot of messing around with my computer, as well as learning new stuff. I'm going on a sort of intellectual adventure, a learning spree, a period of intense hyperfocus on technical stuff.

One of the first things I did was I learned how to use VirtualBox, and how to use it...

I have an interest in old computer stuff, not just obsolete computers, but also ancient programming languages, deprecated networking technologies, antiquated operating systems, terminals and other peripherals, and computer manuals. My interest in old computers, as well as in computing in general, goes way back to my childhood in the 90s, when I was watch...

I have now started on my first large-scale programming project since the good old days of 2011. I'm writing an interpreter for Boolean straight line programs. Straight line programs are a model of computation equivalent to finite automata and Boolean logic circuits. A straight line program is basically a simple program that has no flow control. Every inst...

I've been away for quite some time. Looks like my last blog post was way back in March 2013, so that's probably the longest time I've gone without CodeCall. I stopped doing coding for a while, but now I'm starting up again. I'm coming back to CodeCall, 'cause I miss being here. I miss all the people here. You guys are awesome.

I've seen a disturbing trend in both Apple and Microsoft recently towards sacrificing functionality for the sake of security. This is seen in what Microsoft is doing to Windows 8 and what Apple is doing to the iPhone, iPad, and the newer versions of Mac OS X.

First I'm going to look at Microsoft. People hate Windows 8. If you want proof, just search "...

Okay, so a few days ago I went into the store where I work, and I saw this newspaper that had the words "R.I.P. the PC, 19xx - 2012" on the front. I didn't actually read the article, but I've seen things like this all over the Internet as well as in the traditional media. I would like to share my thoughts on this.

After over four years of heavy use my old Macbook died, so I had to get a new one. Now I'm using the latest version of OS X: Mountain Lion. Turns out they've completely done away with the developer programs and a lot of the Unix stuff - gcc, make, and X11 are all gone. Fortunately I was able to download XQuartz off of a third-party site, so I can...

I am of the opinion that the better you are at math, the better you are at programming. The value of mathematical knowledge in this area is something that is overlooked and underappreciated by many people in the tech industry, and this is probably part of the reason we have so much $hitty software that either runs slowly, is unintuitive, or has some...